CHD Urges FCC to Accommodate Millions Sickened by Wireless Radiation

Children’s Health Defense joined 50 safe technology and disability advocacy groups in filing legal comments urging the Federal Communications Commission to provide access to wired broadband for people who are sensitive to and harmed by wireless technology.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) along with 50 nonprofits, safe technology groups and disability advocacy groups this month filed legal comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to the FCC’s request for comment on how to “prevent and eliminate digital discrimination.”

The proceeding was required by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and President Biden’s Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”

Cosigners include Frank Clegg, former president of Microsoft Canada and founder of Canadians for Safe Technology, and Kent Chamberlin, Ph.D., of New Hampshire’s  Commission to Study the Environmental and Health Effects of Evolving 5G Technology.

The groups called for acceptance, affirmation and inclusion of the electromagnetically sensitive (EMS) and EMS-disabled community — a growing segment of the disability community, which includes people harmed by wireless technology such as cell towers, smart meters and Wi-Fi and mobile phones.

The term EMS has been used since 2002 by the U.S. Access Board, an independent federal agency that advises the government on guidelines for accommodation.

The Access Board promised to remove barriers to access for the EMS-disabled. However, 20 years later, that promise has not been fulfilled.

In their legal comments, the groups explained that EMS-disabled people experience a unique form of “digital discrimination” because they cannot be around radiofrequency (RF) radiation as it makes them sick.

Advocates for the EMS-disabled, including CHD, support the FCC’s goals to advance equity “in the provision of and access to digital communication services and products for all people of the U.S., without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex or disability.”